The girl in the dorm room next to mine speaks in tongues. I hear her late at night when all the other girls are asleep. Most of what she says makes use of the more obscure letters of the alphabet—like z,x, and k’s. She sounds angry, like the voice of God in her ear isn’t joyful.

No one else on our floor ever mentions it.

Speaking in tongues is not as common as you’d think—even at the Southern New England Bible College. My parents sent me here, not realizing that all Christians don’t play bridge and drink martinis on Saturday night. The ones at SNEBC would never slip between their starched sheets without first pressing their knees to the floor in prayer

At Karin’s church, parishioners speak in tongues, give testimony and lay on hands. Karin likes to tell her personal salvation story. It happened in a Thunderbird on a country road as she was weighing the sin in letting her boyfriend unhook her bra.

Does everyone who speaks in tongues use the same language? Can they talk to each other? Were they born knowing “tongues” or did it come to them like a taste for artichokes came to my father months after he returned from Korea? I never find the right words to ask Karin this.

It’s spooky listening to her, knowing she’s pacing her cell-like room and talking gibberish for hours. The syllables seem to rush out of her mouth and bang up against the wallboard. If I put my palms on the wall, I can feel the vibrations.

In daylight, Karin seems normal, pretty in a wispy way. She baby-sits for a woman who once dated President Kennedy and works the dinner shift at the second cash register in the cafeteria. I can see her from behind the counter where I restock the applesauce and Jell-O. Her checkout line moves much faster than the other one.

In December, Karin invites me in to watch “Color Me Barbra” on her contraband TV. She teaches me stuff, telling me that my favorite song on my Lawrence Welk album is actually a movement from Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto # 1. She plays it for me on her record player.

One night Karin comes to my room, mumbling the words I usually hear through the wall, letting her tongue flutter near my ear like a trapped moth. I can smell her breath—it’s anise or licorice and sends shivers down my spine. In the cafeteria later, I stare at the picture of Moses on Mt. Sinai over the tray table while holding a flashlight. She empties both cash registers in seconds.

When the campus police arrest Javier, a work-study student, Karin seems surprised. She puts a dollar in the canister being passed around. His picture from the yearbook is glued to the front. He’s smiling and you can see the gap in his teeth. Someone says they’ll be sending him back to Haiti or Trinidad or wherever he came from.

On Valentine’s Day, Karin invites me to spend the weekend at Kennedy’s mistress’ house. We take the children duckpin bowling and feed them hamburgers. Later we look for things the Sprague’s won’t miss. Karin looks over my haul with a practiced eye, telling me that paste jewelry and ceramic birds are junk.

Karin lights candles in the living room and draws my trembling hands to the flame. She makes me kneel with pebbles under my knees on the tile floor, telling me I’m a bad influence and that she didn’t steal things before I was assigned to the room next to her. I look up and see the little girls huddled on the steps. Their bare legs look like pincers in the half-light.

Two men come for Karin the next morning and take her away in a Volkswagen bus. Mrs. Sprague removes stones from my knees with tweezers and bandages my hands, shaking her head and asking me why I didn’t tell anyone about Karin.

“You two are students at a Bible College,” she tells me “How did this happen?” I want to tell her that a love for Jesus isn’t the only kind of love.

Thanks, Sandra. Hopefully when I get back home your story and John's and Aldo's and r2's will be up. This is why worriers like me shouldn't do things like this. Send it to me in case and I can post it tonight.

SHOT IN DETROIT

CONCRETE ANGEL

And this...

“It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.” ― C.S. Lewis

Patricia (Patti) Abbott

Contact me

at aa2579@wayne.edu

About Me

Patricia Abbott is the author of more than 125 stories that have appeared online, in print journals and in various anthologies. She is the author of two print novels CONCRETE ANGEL (2015) and SHOT IN DETROIT (2016)(Polis Books). CONCRETE ANGEL was nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award in 2016.